Alfie Mawson is full of stories from his “short but sweet” career which took in Wycombe, Barnsley, Swansea, England and a return to Wycombe, where he announced his retirement from football last month aged only 29. But a particular favourite is the day he moved to Wales.
Mawson was 22 at the time and giddy about joining a first Premier League club, but he wasn’t exactly sure where Swansea was. “I thought it’s closer to home [Reading] than Barnsley, so I’ll get to see family more,” he says. “But I’ll be honest, my geography of England, Wales and Scotland was horrific. I was thinking ‘it will be next to Cardiff won’t it, they’re big rivals’. We’re driving past Cardiff on the M4 and sat nav says we’re still an hour and 20 away, and I was like, what? I carried on driving and looked left and said, is that the sea? I was baffled.”
